Redone
by MBallyntyne
Summary: Gordon woke up in the bushes. But...didn't that just happen?


Disclaimer: I do not own the Thunderbirds. Just borrowing :)

"Gordon, you brat! Where are you?" Gordon blearily opened his heavy eyelids, staring in confusion at the bush around him. How did he get there? The last thing he remembered was waking up that morning to the glorious smell of pancakes cooking, the fragrant air spreading to his bedroom even though it was over halfway across the house.

'Ohana, you are amazing,' he thought to himself remembering that heavenly scent. He lay back down in the scrub, tired but happily reminiscing his feelings of anticipation from the morning. All of a sudden the leaves parted and a red-faced Tracy came into view. Gordon blinked in surprise.

"GORDON!" A fist came out of nowhere, grabbing the front of his shirt and dragging him upright until he finally stood, swaying in front of his eldest brother Scott. "What do you think you're doing?" His hair was stuck up in spikes and covered in a white sticky-looking material that Gordon recognised as cornflower mixed with water, having used it enough himself. He felt laughter bubble up inside of him as he stared at his older brother until it finally became too much and he exploded, arms wrapped around torso, laughing hard enough for Scott's hands still holding him to start shaking. He stopped laughing remarkably quickly when Scott lifted him a foot off of the ground by his shirt and shook him harder than he had himself while consumed with amusement.

"You think this is funny?" He growled, face contorted in absolute fury. "You know I'm going to a conference this afternoon!" Gordon's eyebrows drew together.

"Wait," he said warily. "You think I put cornflower in your shampoo?" Scott's utter glare could kill a stone.

"Of course I do! And you knowing what it is proves it!" Gordon was confused. He had gotten up that morning smelling pancakes and suddenly landed himself outside of the house under a bunch of bushes and now Scott was claiming that he'd pulled a prank in the meantime.

"Scott…I don't quite know how to say this but..." he began cautiously, his feet still dangling but a loud crash coming from inside the house interrupted him. Having heard the sound many times before, both males could tell that it was someone falling down the stairs. A yell joined it, unmistakeably Alan's voice, and it sounded in pain.

Scott whirled. Two seconds later John and Virgil's voices were added to the commotion and Scott heard Virgil say, "I've got him, just help me get him up, Johnny." This effectively stopped Scott from sprinting headlong back through the door to the pool, back inside the house, and diving to his knees beside his youngest brother to comfort and control the situation. Virgil had it in hand, and knowing that, Scott decided to continue his reign of terror over the shifty-looking Gordon. He scowled at the red-head.

"I hope you mean to apologise, and you better not have done whatever that was to Alan inside or you're going to be worse than dead." Gordon shifted agitatedly in Scott's grasp and Scott's eyes widened marginally, realising that he still held his brother off of the ground. He placed him back on his feet, not gently by any measure and Gordon winced as it jarred his head. Scott raised an eyebrow but said nothing. His wrath still hadn't abated.

"Thanks," breathed Gordon, moving a hand to touch his head lightly. He looked up at Scott, noticing that his eyes were still angry but in their depths there was a hint of concern. Gordon ignored the blatant suspicion, always one to believe the best in people. He sighed.

'Scott the mother-hen,' he thought to himself, 'always worrying.' Of course at this point Scott probably had good cause to be worried about his brother; Gordon's head felt like it was going to burst! Not that he was going to tell his big brother that...

"Actually," Gordon tried for the second time, "I think I would remember pulling a prank like that. Have you asked Alan?" It was well-known history in the Tracy household that the two youngest boys were known as the Terrible Two, named after the many pranks they had pulled off as younger boys. As a matter of fact, they still pulled off pranks, Gordon in particular but occasionally Alan was partial to it, which was why the three eldest boys often came to those two when something had gone comically wrong. Scott frowned.

"Yes I've asked Alan and considering he just fell down the stairs I'd say he didn't set up that one either," He said impatiently. "He said he didn't do it." Gordon rolled his eyes, forgetting for a moment about his head, and flinching at the onslaught of worsening discomfort.

"Of course he did." The second youngest Tracy said it matter-of-factly, knowing that Alan would most definitely try to blame whatever he had done on Gordon, the main prankster himself. "Well, I didn't do it either." Scott's eyes narrowed and Gordon hastened to add a promise to the end. The eldest Tracy looked at him for a moment, sighed, and then lowered his gaze. Gordon, no matter the prank, would always be proud of it and admit it afterwards; most often from the middle of some form of water where he knew he could easily out-swim any angry siblings that decided to give chase.

"It's too early in the morning." It was getting windy outside and a strong, cold gust made Gordon shiver violently and pull his jacket tighter around his shoulders but his eldest brother appeared not to notice, much too caught up in his thoughts to focus on the weather. Scott's eyebrow rose, no longer angry, instead very much confused and concerned.

"Gordon, you get up the earliest out of all of us, and it's just after lunch." It wasn't like the second youngest Tracy, the food inhaler, to not remember lunch, especially when he'd had 2 and a half hamburgers and a bowl of salad. He raised his hand to check Gordon's forehead for a fever.

Fever had been known to confuse the red-head, one time going far enough to convince him that he was in a yellow submarine resulting in him singing until his voice disappeared and had all of his brothers climbing the walls in utter annoyance and despair. Since that fateful day in his childhood, the song had been vehemently banned and anyone found singing, humming or generally tapping the song was sentenced to 3 days doing maintence work on another brother's 'Bird. Seeing as they were so sick of it, the only person who had ever bought up the matter again was Alan who pointed out that their father hadn't actually banned Virgil from playing it on his beloved piano, and eventually trying to cajole him into it. Needless to say it was Virgil who turned him in to their father himself, whether from utter annoyance from the song or because he had recently done some damage to 2 and needed a helping hand to patch her up.

Gordon grinned at the memory, mentally debating whether or not faking a fever would get him out of trouble if he did sing that delightfully annoying song now. Unfortunately, but fortunately for Scott, he took his hand away a second later, no fever to be found or felt.

"Gordon, you don't remember lunch?" Gordon shook his head confused.

"Nope," he shrugged. "Nothing since waking up this morning to the absolutely delicious smell of Ohana's heavenly pancakes. And speaking of confused, aren't you going to that meeting tomorrow?" Now Scott was seriously worried.

"That was yesterday's breakfast, Gordo. Today we had waffles. And the meeting is in an hour." There was the briefest flicker of fear on his younger brothers face before a well-practiced mask came into place. It was the mask Gordon wore when he was trying to fool a sibling to go into a room where he had set up some trap or contraption designed to embarrass or inconvenience. The mask used to cover up whatever he was really feeling. Scott was well acustomed to it and knew exactly what Gordon was feeling, despite the blank face.

"Okay, this is what we're going to do," he explained. "You're going to go and see Virgil in the infirmary, where he has most likely taken Alan, and explain all this to him. And if you're pulling a prank of some kind, we are all going to jump on you and pull you to pieces for making us worry, understood?"

Gordon just grinned, turned towards the pool in order to navigate his way through the thick bush and to the back door, nimbly dodging a falling treebranch on his way, calling over his shoulder a cocky, "Since when have I ever needed to pull a prank to make you worry, Mother-hen?" And with that he disappeared inside of the house before Scott could even get close enough to grab him and toss him in the pool.

The door to the infirmary slid open with a woosh and a slight beep, making the three occupants look up, one in slight pain at the gesture. Alan lay on the white bed, stretched out with his feet almost reaching the end.

Virgil was the only one who could properly fit on one of these beds without looking extremely over-long. He was the shortest of the 5 brothers by about half an inch but he was muscly, which made up for any height lackage in a fight. He was also extremely capable of throwing people into swimming pools when they called him short. It was a trait that all the Tracy's seemed partial to for punishment, this 'tossing people in pools.' It was probably genetic.

At this moment he was holding an icepack and wrapping it in a paper towel to apply to the back of Alan's head where a bump was forming. Other icepacks surrounded various parts of other limbs including Alan's knee, which had gone a red-purple colour even in the short time since he had sustained the injury. As it appeared, Alan had hit his head on the last of the steps, thinking the tumbling process was over and uncurling from his protective pose. The rest of the injuries looked mainly superficial.

John sat patiently beside his younger brother's bed in a plastic chair, one ankle crossed behind the other and arms folded. His face was calm for one who had just seen or heard his youngest brother tumble down a flight of stairs, but then it usually was.

Scott marched in, dragging Gordon by the bicep, immediately causing the three to come to the conclusion that he was in trouble. Of course after this the two uninjured logically jumped ahead to the thought that Scott was mad because it was Gordon who had caused Alan's accident.

John stood, coming quickly closer to the red-head with a raised eyebrow, learnt from Scott. Scott immediately took John's place beside the youngest, checking and rechecking to make sure he was okay.

Virgil just frowned and adjusted one of the ice-packs. If anyone could get the second youngest Tracy to admit to something, it was John. Gordon had a deep-set respect for John, resulting in him not playing quite as many pranks on the blond as he did to the brunettes and his younger brother.

The other males assumed this was because of their completely opposite personalities complementing each other but in reality it was something quite different. John was the only one who knew Gordon's long-term fear, found out during a rescue, and hadn't told or made fun of him for it. Gordon respected that. So as the second oldest Tracy came closer to the second youngest, he got that unbearable urge to admit everything.

"I didn't do it," he blurted out quickly, eyes widening innocently and shrinking under the heavy gaze of his brothers. "I never set whatever made Alan fall, I promise!" Virgil snorted quietly to himself under his breath in disbelief and John paused in his advance, tilting his head slightly to the side, a habit that Gordon had learnt from him. Scott, however, looked on seriously.

"I believe him," he said quietly and everything stopped. It was rare for Scott to believe Gordon, especially when it came to pranks. It wasn't that he didn't trust him, he was just too used to Gordon's manipulating tongue and tended to second-guess him when it came to matters like this. But he always listened and believed when it counted, and this time it did. Scott couldn't explain it but it truly seemed as if Gordon couldn't remember anything since the morning before and he definitely wasn't one to second-guess when it came to his brothers' health. Virgil frowned.

"Gordon, how much did you pay him?" he asked suspiciously. Gordon looked atrociously hurt.

"I didn't–"

Scott interrupted. "Kind of hard to admit to pulling a prank now when you can't rememer anything since yesterday's breakfast," he said mildly. Everyone in the room froze, as they did when they were shocked. It was a rescue thing. If you're in danger or threatened, freeze then get the hell out of there! John was the first to speak after the silence that lasted for at least a minute.

"You don't remember...anything?" Gordon shook his head.

"Nope," he replied casually. "But Scott's got it wrong. I don't even remember going down to breakfast. My memory stops at waking up."

"Then?"

"Then I wake up again in the bushes a little way from the pool with a pounding headache and Scott yelling at me." Virgil and John raised their eyebrows at their oldest sibling. He raised his hands in defense, pushing the plastic chair he was sitting on back onto two legs in a small effort to get away.

"Not my fault," he announced, rather loudly. "Gordon has been known to hide in the bushes after pulling a prank."

"Prank?" John was confused. Scott pointed at his still sticky but hardened slightly hair. There was a coughing sound but both oldest boys ignored it. Alan and Virgil appeared to be suffocating on amusment, literally after a while and Gordon had to pound Alan on his probably still very sore back to revive his proper breathing rhythm. None of the Tracy's had noticed until then that Scott's hair was an unusual colour and texture, they were so absorbed in worrying over Alan and trying not to get in the way of an anxious Scott. Scott was known to be quite forceful when he was worried. Suddenly Virgil frowned, his laughter dying off in a trail.

"Gordon, you said you hit your head," he asked anxiously, clarifying the matter to better understand what the second youngest was going through. There was a grunt in reply meant as an affirmative seeing as he couldn't nod his head and talking was getting just too exhausting.

"What?" Alan couldn't hear or understand him and, assuming he had said something important, demanded to be in the know.

"Lower your voice," Gordon wimpered as a rather large white-hot pain shot through his head at the noise Alan was making. It wasn't his fault, he always seemed to be stuck on one volume possible, no matter who was trying to sleep (Virgil usually), trying to read (John most often), or trying to secretly pull a prank on an unsuspecting brother (Gordon and, much to his displeasure, it was generally Scott). Gordon wondered why he didn't get caught as much as he did then looked at Alan's baby blue eyes and dismissed the thought.

'It should be a felony,' he thought to himself, scowling at his younger brother. 'You shouldn't be allowed to be youngest and cutest so that no one ever tells you off, even if you fill the pool system with Jello crystals.' He had been pissed for weeks after that one; Alan had taken up permanent residence on the other side of the island with a tent and everything. He had even persuaded a sympathetic Ohana to transport food to him in the form of TinTin on hoverscooter.

"Gordon." There was a hand on his shoulder and he looked up in surprise. Everyone in the room was staring at him in concern, it appeared they'd been calling his name for a while. It was John's hand on his shoulder and he was bent over slightly from the waist to get under Gordon's eyelevel.

"Are you okay? You look a bit pale." Gordon nodded once, a jerky affair, and his legs promptly gave out. John grabbed him around the waist and pulled and dragged him over to the bed next to Alan's. Scott moved out of the way before he was shoved out and then slipped an arm around the red-head's waist as well, both towing him in synch to the white bed. Virgil strode wide-eyed over to the cot and placed his hands on his younger brother's chest, gently pushing him to lay down.

Normally Gordon would have put up the most horrifying fuss but today he just lay down quietly; whether from the absolute exhaustion that had just consumed him and made his legs give out, or because Virgil Tracy was wearing his Virge-the-surge face and the red-head knew there was nothing he could do to distract his attention short of telekinetically pushing Alan off of his bed and escaping while everyone was fussing over the youngest.

'Of course if I had that kind of power I would just shove Virgil away in the first place, open the door and go swimming, praying while in the water that I won't drown,' he thought to himself. 'Make pranking a lot easier too.' He was disrupted from his superpower chain of thought by a light shining in his eyes, making him blink and try to turn away only to find that two strong hands were holding his face in place. He wondered when that had happened and shut his eyes in displeasure. There was a deep sigh from directly above him but he didn't dare open his eyes.

"Gordon," growled a voice. "Stop being stubborn." Gordon wrinkled his nose.

"Bitrichcomingfromyou," he mumbled and there was a pause, followed by a quiet whisper to the owner of the hands.

"What did he say?" The voice whispered suspiciously. There was a deep chuckle but no answer. Gordon cleared his throat.

"I said, 'that's a bit rich coming from you,' Virge-the-surge. Take the damn light away or you never get to see these pretty amber's open ever again." Now there were three voices chuckling and one disgruntled sigh.

"I can see you're feeling marginally better," said the middle Tracy.

"Well, I don't see anything." He could almost tell that Virgil was pinching the bridge of his nose and counting to ten. In Greek. Backwards. Δέκα, εννέα, οκτώ... and then Gordon was out like a light, sheep numbering not required.

* * *

><p>"Gordon, you brat! Where are you?" Gordon's eyes shot open in surprise and he sat up, headache be damned. He was sitting in bushes, which were crumpled around him as if he'd fallen into them. He had no memory of doing so for the second time that day, the last thing he remembered being lying down in the infirmary after practically squashing his elder blond brother and having to be dragged to the bed. And then that infernal light. That was it. Again, suddenly, the leaves parted and Scott's tomato-shade face came into view, as angry as earlier. Gordon looked up at him in shock, his eyes like a possom in the headlights of a truck.<p>

"GORDON!" The fist came again but as soon as Gordon saw his eldest brother moving he remembered and dodged out of the way, getting to his shaky feet on his own and backing away slowly. His face was the tint of a clean sheet and his mouth was quivering in shock. So far he had managed not to say anything, a record for him who people thought generally opened his mouth without thinking. What they didn't know was that was actually Alan who had a chronic foot-in-mouth disease. Contrary to popular opinion, the red-head Tracy did think things through but often added initiative to his thoughts as well as creativity, which was why he was such an excellent prankster as well as invaluble on a rescue. At the moment he was going through the thought process of how one could possibly go back several tens of minutes in time.

'Super power day,' he determined dryly, remembering also his earlier ideas of telekinetically shoving his younger brother off of an infirmary bed. Suddenly his brain connected and he reacted.

"Scott," he gasped, realising his brother was still standing there, not so much in anger but more in shock at Gordon's lightning fast reflexes when he was about to grab his shirt and lift him off of the ground. And after that when he had backed away from Scott in what seemed to him like terror. None of his brothers had done that before and it was clear to see that Gordon was not the only Tracy in shock.

"Scott," Gordon repeated anxiously. "Alan's going to fall down the stairs." Shock disappeared from Scott's face to be replaced by suspision and a raised eyebrow.

"How do you know that?" he asked warily only to be interrupted by the sound of a thump inside the house and Alan's pained yell, to be followed by Virgil's voice telling John how he should go about picking the youngest blond Tracy up and taking him to the infirmary. He got ready to run to the medical room to be with his brother when a gentle hand on his arm stopped him.

"It's alright," said Gordon calmly abit absently. He obviously had something else on his mind but wanted to comfort his elder brother first, knowing how Scott would be worried.

"He's okay. The worst would be the possibly sprained knee and the bump on his head but apart from that it's just bruises and scratches." Scott stood frozen, not because Gordon had stopped him with the hand on his arm, he could have broken that hold as easily as opening a packet of chips, but with the multitude of information the red-head Tracy held despite not having seen any of the accident. Unless he had caused it... Scott's eyes narrowed and Gordon quickly released the tanned arm and stepped back out of swinging distance. It was a honed skill from many years spent avoiding the fists of angry shampoo'd-conflowered elder brothers.

"Did you cause it?" Scott asked angrily, the momentary pause to his wrath having finished. "Is that how you know so much?" Gordon shook his head vehemently and hastily and explained as best he could without sounding crazy.

"Déjà vu?" That was unfortunately all he could come up with. Scott raised an eyebrow scathingly.

"To what, when you put syrup on the stairs and watched from the lounge as Virge fell and almost broke his neck?"

Gordon had denied it all that evening but had been sent to bed much too early for a 14 year old, grounded for a month, and banned from the pool for multiple weeks resulting in a sulky, stubborn, tricksy, water-loving red-head having nothing to do. Needless to say after that there were even more pranks than normal which was saying something considering there were always a lot, especially during spring break.

Unknown to any of the other Tracy's, Gordon had been unfairly punished and it was actually Alan who had put syrup on the stairs in order to try to catch the giant bug of some sort that had been crawling around the house after it escaped from Brains and his son Fermat's experiment. He hadn't meant to hurt anyone, a fact he had protested to Gordon later that night when the elder Tracy had threatened to tell, only to be resolved by Alan becoming Gordon's slave for the duration of the grounding, or until Gordon got bored of Alan following him, constantly catering to every whim in order to make ammends.

Gordon snorted at the memory, resulting in him slightly swaying on his already wobbly feet, and his face losing a shade or two. Scott's arm shot out to grab his, keeping him standing. Concern replaced the anger on his face.

"Are you alright, Gordo?" he asked anxiously. Gordon grinned up at him.

"Peachy," he said showing his teeth. "But I didn't cause Alan to fall down the stairs." He shrugged. "We both know he's clumsy like nothing on earth, or in space either."

Alan had managed to knock down a pile of John's 'miscellaneous stuff,' as he called it, on Thunderbird 5 and had to hastily put it back in some order before the other blond came back up on 3. Scott nodded and a small fond smile tilted his lips upwards. It was obvious that both Tracy's were remembering the same thing.

"Come on, let's go join Alan getting patched up," he said, forgetting he was angry about his hair, confused that Gordon knew so much about Alan's condition, and worried about Gordon's state of health.

"He's likely to be in a fit, knowing Virge and his prodding tools," he chuckled.

"Virge-the-surge," Gordon muttered under his breath as Scott towed him to the door, his legs not in complete working order.

Walking into the room was just as Gordon remembered it. Alan lay on the bed with his various ice-packs, Virgil stood beside him, this time finished putting them all on his youngest brother, and John sat calmly in the plastic chair, exactly the same as last time.

Everything continued the same as normal too, with the exception that no one knew Gordon had forgotten everything from the last 24-hours-and-a-bit and had just gone through this part of the day for the second time. So when he collapsed for the second time from utter exhaustion, no one was there to catch him and everyone just turned, astonished, to the red-head Tracy with an entirely new bruise on his head sprawled on the cool floor.

Gordon pressed his cheek into the cold surface, feeling the temperature soak into his skin, and just lay there, much too tired to get up.

"Gordon!" Three pairs of hands were touching his back anxiously, rolling him over gently and trying to pry his eyes open, something he stubbornly refused to do. Alan was watching from the bed, his sheet becoming frantically shredded between his nervous fingers.

"Gordo, look at me." That was Virgil, and Gordon couldn't be bothered. That light that was always bought out when he had a concussion was starting to irritate him, and things that irritated him went 'walkies' a night later in the week from when they had offended the prankster.

That was with the exception of Alan, who was almost constantly irritating, but had gained a fondness from the red-head. At least enough not to end up sending him head over heels through the garbage slot at 3 in the morning.

Gordon made a snap decision to dispose of the light-pen-thing ASAP. In the meantime he would keep his eyes very tightly shut, thank you very much. He said as much to the middle Tracy who stayed silent.

John answered for him, trying to defuse the situation before Virge-the-surge blew up with the mounting stress and worry of two brothers needing to stay in the infirmary, only made worse by the fact that both of them were his younger brothers.

"Gordo, he just wants to check if you have a concussion," he said calmly and patiently but Gordon could tell he was anything but, his hands anxiously checking his brother for other hurts while Virgil worked on the head.

Gordon, in typical Gordon stubborness, told Virgil where he could put his light. He could tell without looking that both brunettes were exchanging that glance that said Gordo-is-an-ass, which they frequently did when he said something dumb or anatomically impossible.

"Gordon," Scott warned in that tone that was getting close to Field Commander. He almost never used that tone at home as it required him to be tough and go into that emotionless persona needed for rescues to make the most logical decision.

"Let Virge look in your eyes or we peel them open and he looks at them then." Gordon panicked, there really was no other word for it. He struggled, trying fantically to worm his way out of the tight grips of his elder brothers, but only succeeded in whacking his head on the solid floor _again_, his mind disappearing from the counted conscious. For the second time.

* * *

><p>Gordon opened his eyes. He was in the bush again. For the tenth time. 'What is this, some kind of warped Groudhog Day thing,' he asked himself, sitting up. This time he hadn't heard Scott's yell calling him a brat and only came to right before Scott's arm shot out, grabbed him by the shirt and dragged him upright, this time too surprised to avoid it.<p>

"GORDON! What do you think you're doing?" Gordon's head lolled on his neck, staring up at his brother from where he was hanging limply in his grasp.

"Scotty," he sang spreading his arms wide and giggled to himself, giving the impression of one highly intoxicated. Scott's eyebrows came together.

"Have you been drinking?" he accused rather than asked. At least it sounded that way to Gordon.

"Nooooo," Gordon whined pitefully. "I don't remember."

"You don't remember what?" Gordon ignored the question.

"Someone put cornflower in your shampoo," he stated and Scott remembered the reason he had come looking for the red-head. He shook him lightly.

"Was that you?" Gordon shrugged.

"I don't remember, Scotty. I don't remember anything since smelling pancakes." His mouth watered miserably at the thought. "Ohana's pancakes. Don't even remember eating them." He frowned in annoyance. 'Obviously the thought of not remembering the pancakes is the worst thing on Gordon's mind,' thought Scott to himself as he grew more concerned with every word.

"What do you remember, Gordo?" he asked, almost gently. He was still angry after all. Gordon frowned even deeper, becoming more serious now the drunkness of being back in the same place was wearing off.

"Not much actually," he admitted reluctantly. None of the Tracy's liked admitting to percieved weakness of any kind. "I can remember waking up to Ohana's pancakes and that's it. Oh and by the way, this is the tenth time I've been through this waking up from this spot." Now that he had dropped the bomb, he stood firmly on his own two feet and it was his elder brother's turn to frown, the red draining from his face as he realised what his brother was saying.

"So what, like some sort of warped Groundhog Day?" Gordon chuckled.

"And we have a winner!" he cheered, raising his arms to the sky in triumph. "It only took you four go's to figure it out and I have to say this one was the quickest. Mind you, you have had a bit of practice." Confusion twisted Scott's tanned, beardless face.

"Practice?" Gordon nodded and then winced. "Ouch," he muttered under his breath. The only bad thing about this repeating time thing was that the headache got slightly worse each time until he couldn't nod or shake his head at all. While in the infirmary the fifth time he had thrown up with the pain that had assulted when he whirled to face John after he said something very un-Johnny like. The sixth he had avoided any head movements what-so-ever gaining weird looks but saving himself from further embarrassment.

"This is the tenth time I've explained the time-thingy to you. I wake up in this spot with you yelling at me about putting cornflower in your shampoo and how you're really pissed because you have a meeting this afternoon, but to me it's on tomorrow afternoon because I still can't remember the whole of yesterday or this morning up until this point which I have repeated several times already and–"

There was a crash, yell and Virgil's voice. Scott turned in alarm towards the sound. Gordon stopped him with a hand on his arm.

"–That's Alan falling down the stairs; wrenched knee, bumped head, multiple bruises; no, I don't want to go see him; look at me when I'm talking; yes, I care about him; no, I'm still not going down there; don't pull that face at me, Scott Tracy; yes, you do have to listen to the rest of this; yes, Alan really is going to be fine with the exception of possible serious brain injury that could develop in time; and lastly, you really are like a mother-hen from the several times I've seen you like this. I swear it gets worse every time I tell you, you're like some sort of frantic bird and, on my word, I honestly would have stopped Alan falling...if I...could..." he trailed off, staring hard at the ground.

Something was lurking at the back of his conscience, something he could do... He dismissed it, internally shaking his head.

'Nothing to worry about,' he grinned. 'Alan will be fine.' He was still shaken from finally remembering to ask about Alan's condition. Virgil had told him that there was the possibility that Alan could develop serious brain deterioration in time because of the dangerous knock he had taken there a couple of years ago in the same place. Multiple knocks to the head could cause brain trauma, as Virgil had found out many years ago when he had first started doctoring.

His decision of doctoring being made by Alan, who had knocked himself out after crashing into the fridge from running on the kitchen tiles in socks. Virgil was now seriously concerned about Alan's brain-health, seeing as the fridge-bash wasn't the only concussion he had sustained in the years since, especially with the accident at a rescue some years past.

That information was what had made Gordon pass out two times ago, a combination of shock and horror, something he had nicknamed 'shorror' when he woke the time before this. The ninth time. Hopefully he could just get through this time, just survive until the next time and not embarrass himself too badly.

The fifth time puking had been the worst. 'And it makes it so much better to see their faces,' he thought to himself sarcastically. 'Those sad, concerned, worried-out-of-their-minds faces who have no idea what's going on, who barely believe me when I tell them I've been through this before.'

He had reached the centre of the torment that kept him going. He wanted nothing more than to go and hide and just repeat this endless circle by himself, where none of those faces could be seen, none of them had to worry. He could just pass time by himself, the useless time that he couldn't stop repeating, the time that was starting to come packaged with a terrible fear and resignment to the uncontrollable echo, the unchangeableness of it, and Gordon's worst fear.

Gordon wasn't afraid of tall places, long drops or closed spaces; instead he had a noble but deathly fear of the unchangeable, the things that he couldn't do anything about, the things that he had to let go. Gordon wasn't good at letting go of things he wanted, needed, but couldn't fix. And only one person knew this. Gordon's respect for this person grew by the day with every day they didn't tell.

He was startled out of his thoughts by a large hand on his shoulder, barely stopping the shudder that rippled through him as he dispersed of the evil beings taking residence in his head, controlling his usually cheery persona.

"You okay, Gordo?" Scott had noticed the gradual draining of blood from the red-head's lowered face, making the slight freckles stand out noticably. He gripped the arm tightly and helped sit his younger brother down on the squished bushes.

A glance up had him thinking and he checked the back of Gordon's head to confirm his hunch. A lump the size of a goose egg had grown on the second youngest Tracy's head and the open window above rallied his suspicions, especially with Gordon's memory loss and the nonsense spouting from his mouth about a serious déjà vu experiance.

"Gordon, did you jump or fall?" he asked anxiously, tapping Gordon's cheek when he didn't answer. "Gordo?" The person in question looked up and Scott gaped at the visible misery on his younger brother's face. It was worse, much worse, than the time Jeff drained the pool, not so coincidentally when you considered the prank Gordon had just pulled outside his office hours before.

"Hey, Gordon, are you alright?" Gordon shook his head wearily before turning to the side to throw up everything he didn't remember eating for breatfast for the second time that day, vow broken. Scott rubbed his back cautiously. Finally Gordon sat back up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand which he in turn wiped on the clean bushes that weren't so clean anymore.

"I'm good," he grimaced. "No, you're not taking me to the infirmary, I've spent too many times today passing out in there." Scott raised an eyebrow in surprise.

"How did you know I was going to say that?" he asked shocked, but that was then tempered down when he realised that it was a perfectly normal question he would have asked. Gordon looked up at him wearily.

"I have spent this time 10 times with you, I think I would know what you're going to say by now." There was a dryness to his tone, a sort of deadpan humour that would have made Scott smile had he not been so worried. It wasn't like Gordon to be subtle, he was more the things-falling-from-the-ceiling obvious type guy.

Scott frowned as a question came to him, uncertainty twisting his mouth. Gordon smirked, eyes at half-mast.

"Just ask it," was murmured before the eyes shut entirely. A tongue was stuck out at his elder brother as Gordon sensed Scott's worry heighten at the closing of his eyes. A smirk tugged on the corner of Scott's lips.

Gordon was perceptive normally, now this claimed Groundhog Day thing had intensified it. Scott could loose him anywhere and the red-head would be a formidable force. It was a tactic often whispered about in secret between Scott and John, John who was even more observant than Gordon, and Scott who was boss.

"Okay then," Scott smiled. "Where are you?" One amber eye opened in annoyance.

"This isn't a concussion check," he said, peeved. "Just ask the proper ones. Humour me, you'll get my thoughts in order by asking."

The eye shut again as Gordon thought, 'I don't have much time anyway.'

"How many times has this happened?"

"Ten times."

"This is the tenth?" Both eyes opened, this time in anger.

"That's what I sai–you're paging Virgil, aren't you?" He rolled his eyes at Scott's guilty look. "Look, I don't have much time, I'll pass out before Virge gets here so please, just ask any questions you think are relevant. I need to figure this out to know how to stop it."

It had come to him a little while ago, the need to clarify everything that had happened so far without having to explain, and he very much couldn't write. He might deny having a concussion but his eyesight wasn't the best at the moment. Scott very dearly wanted to ask him whether he had finally gone mad but seeing Gordon this serious had put the thought right out of his head.

"Fine." Gordon closed his eyes in relief and Scott eyed him warily, unsure as to why this was wanted. They would taken him up to the infirmary and have him set right in no time. But until then...

"What's the last thing you remember?"

"Waking up yesterday morning and smelling Ohana's pancakes cooking."

"Umm...How long is it before you...go back to the beginning?"

"When I pass out from exhaustion or get knocked out." Scott understood. This was why he needed the questions now, he thought that once he passed out he would go back to whatever had started this.

"What do you think is causing this?"

"Not answering that one." This time it was Scott who rolled his eyes. It was just like Gordon to think up something so ridiculous that he wouldn't share it. "Well, Gordo, you know in the movie, they have to change something. The main guy went around saving people too. Maybe you have to save someone."

Unfortunately Gordon didn't answer, having fallen to the ground midway through the recommendation unconscious, worn out by the questioning.

* * *

><p>Gordon blearily opened his eyes to find Scott standing over him, angry as ever, and he just sighed and closed his eyes again.<p>

"GORDON! What do you think you're doing?" Gordon smirked.

"Oh, just lying around waiting for you to come beat me up for putting cornflower in your shampoo." Scott grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him up, Gordon being much too tired to roll out of the way like he had the forth time.

"Oh yeah? So you did put it there?"

"Yep. I was also the one who thought up the spaceship, went to the moon with Neil and Buzz, recorded on the first CD and invented the submarine. It was yellow." Scott growled as Gordon's lazy tone, shaking him violently. Gordon smirked harder but there was a tenseness to his face, especially around his eyes where there were little lines worn in.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Scotty," he warned. "I'm having a rather queazy day and would very much appreciate it if you let me down." Scott laughed nastily.

"Must have been all those waffles you ate this morning." But he put him down, remarkably gently for someone so angry. Gordon swayed on his feet, not even bothering to steady himself. Scott frowned in confusion.

"You alright?" Gordon had his eyes closed by now.

"Would be, if I could remember anything from the last 24 hours. Even 'all those waffles' I ate this morning." He laughed bitterly at himself. "Can't even save myself from this damn loop, let alone anyone else," he said, wallowing for a moment in self-pity. Scott frowned. "Save yourself? Gordo, what's going on?" Gordon opened his amber eyes, staring Scott directly in the eye with a black look.

"That's what you said before I passed out last time."

"I don't..."

"You don't remember? Welcome to my world. I have been going through this part of the day for 11 times so far and have found no way of stopping it with the exception of saving someone. There is no one in this house to save except Alan when he falls down the stairs." Gordon blinked once and then his face lit up as it hadn't done since yesterday morning that he remembered. He grinned his thousand-watt smile at Scott, patting him on the shoulder.

"Good man," he said as he strode past his elder brother towards the door. The eldest Tracy looked on in confusion.

"Gordon, what..." Gordon ignored him and kept walking towards the glass door. He had a mission now. Virgil had said that there was the possibility Alan could sustain some serious brain damage from falling down the stairs that would be obvious later on.

As far as Gordon had seen there had been no such repercussions, but then God knew better than he did. It was a chance only from the one in the sky to set things right and stop the ultimate tragedy from tearing their family to pieces.

Gordon looked to the horizon as he stepped inside the door onto the smooth wooden floor and whispered, "Thanks." But a bang startled him and his eyes shot from the cloudless cobalt sky to the stairs. Alan was lying on the ground awkwardly and, as he watched, Virgil and John came rushing out of Virgil's Second Room to find him lying on the ground.

Virgil quickly assessed the situation, making sure his youngest brother hadn't broken his neck, before instructing John to help him get the youngest Tracy to the infirmary. Alan just looked at both brothers blankly, still dazed from the stairs. No one noticed Gordon Tracy had been there and disappeared again, gone to find a tree to bash his head on.

* * *

><p>Gordon's eyes flew open in alarm. Hitting his head on the tree hadn't worked, and only made his headache all the more unbearable until he had just wanted to sit down and cry. He'd had to wait until the exhaustion played out; obviously God only intended for him to revert back at a certain time. He'd spent the extra minutes planning his maneuvers as best he could with his eyelids drooping. His plan: Wake up, get up before Scott finds me, run to stairs, save Alan.<p>

'Simple but effective,' he thought to himself as he hastily got to his feet and ran in the opposite direction to the door. If he had run towards it he would have bumped into Scott, and Gordon really didn't want that happening. He'd never thought that he'd think this about his eldest brother but Scott in this situation was actually a time-waster, a big change to the Field-Commander everyone was used to.

There was a side door into the house that barely anyone used due to the fact that it was next to the kitchens where Ohana worked, and if there was one thing that no Tracy did, brave or not, it was annoy the person who cooked the meals. And did Ohana get annoyed! It was an unspoken fact in the household that Jeff Tracy was not the head of the clan, instead it was the woman who ruled the food, and everyone knew it, if not all consciously.

Gordon took special care in going through that door, waiting for a second and scouting out the vast kitchen before beginning his intrusion into the commanding woman's domain. There were pots set out beside the dishwashers, obviously from the lunch Gordon couldn't remember. He went to go to the exit door on the other side, as Ohana could come in at any time and see him and make the life-changing descision to put chilli powder in his every meal and baking soda in his every drink and...

All of a sudden he paused and turned back to the pots. In a true Gordon-fashioned move, he headed back that way, swiping his index finger in the sauce pan and tasting the glory before quickly carrying on way out. He was now beside the staircase and sat down heavily to wait.

After a second, he stood back up again. There was a reason that he was called one of the Terrible Two. He could not sit still for longer than fifteen minutes and that was when he was in a patient mood. Debriefings with his family gave his father grey hairs because of the hell of being in the same room as a man who constantly acted like he had ants in his pants and practically ran around the perimeter of the room everytime he thought the air got to still.

It was on more than one occasion that Gordon Tracy had had to be sent out, much to his pleasure and his brothers' jealousy, and immediately went out to swim in the oversize pool. Though his brothers were majorly more patient, debriefings were hard on the over-worked mind and all too often sore bodies. They, as much as Gordon, didn't like sitting through them.

A bang made Gordon look up in a hurry.

'Ah,' he thought to himself, rising off of the bottom step. 'Here comes two-left-feet.' Alan was a snowball with blond hair rapidly tumbling down the flight of high-tech stairs.

Gordon moved into position. His recent 'encounter' with a personal Groundhog Day had shown him how to watch more carefully than before, causing him to observe three vital things at once. Okay, the first wasn't so vital but it was still worth noticing for further blackmail purposes.

First, Alan gave his yell which, as he banged down each step, came out sort of jagged with ups and downs. It almost sounded like he was going through puberty again. Gordon gave a silent wince in rememberance of that time.

Second, Alan had tripped, but while he'd been coming down the stairs he'd been carrying several of John's books. And John's books weighed a ton at least. Each. They slid down in front of Alan, cushioning his way slightly but making him travel faster with their slick hard backs.

Third was that Gordon had finally seen where Alan's fall would take him: head-first into his elder brother. Gordon's eyes widened fractionally before a giant mass of blond hair, blue t-shirt and karkhi beach-shorts hit him with the speed of what Gordon considered a bullet train on steroids. His arms encompassed the lump that was Alan Tracy and fell backwards with him, landing on his backside on the wooden floor.

Unfortunately that wasn't where it stopped. Gordon kept going backwards until his head also had a reunion with the ground, after the 11 or so times that day. Gordon's last thought was, 'At least the Sprout's safe,' before he sunk gratefully and wearily into unconsciousness.

* * *

><p>Gordon's eyes opened very, very slowly to the sight of a blurry, indistinct figure with brunette hair and cobalt blobs for eyes.<p>

"Damn," he muttered, flinching slightly as he turned his head away.

"Well, the last time I got that response out of you was when you jimmied the lock system into 1's hanger and painted her pink before knocking yourself out on her wing." There was a definate amusement to his eldest brother's deep voice, mused Gordon as he blearily opened his eyes again.

'Maybe he's not mad anymore.' It didn't occur to him to look around and see the non-plant life around him, meaning that he wasn't caught in the loop anymore. Gordon still thought he was back in the bushes with Scott after his head for the cornflower in his shampoo that he'd put in there that morning after breakfast. Breakfast.

'Mmmm, waffles!' Just thinking about it made Gordon happy. 'Wait...after breakfast?' He blinked, watching absently as his fuzzy vision cleared up. 'I remember. That's funny! So I did put cornflower in his shampoo.' He chuckled, Scott giving him a raised eyebrow in an invitation to share the joke. Gordon ignored him. 'Ahh, the irony.'

Out loud though, he said, "Guess saving Alan didn't work after all." He shrugged to himself, messing up the bedsheets. He still didn't notice the change of scenery. Scott frowned in utter confusion with the first stirrings of serious worry.

"Gordo, you did save Alan," he said slowly and gently, as one would to a scared animal. Gordon was no scared animal but Scott could tell that this information would possibly scare him just slightly, seeing as he thought that he was somewhere other than where he was. "He almost took a header on the floor. Don't you remember?" The second-youngest Tracy nodded peacefully.

"So I did sav–Wait, what?" He bolted upright in the bed, eyes wider than a possom's, hands automatically clenching in the white sheets. He sat frozen for a second, staring straight ahead while Scott worried in the background, his eyes anxious. Virgil had said something about possible memory loss...

All of a sudden Gordon moved, pulling his hand up to his face in wonder, still clinging to the sheets. He gasped in shock and whirled to face Scott, ignoring the pain in the back of his head.

"Scotty, where am I?" he asked, terrified. He wasn't the only one.

"VirGIL!" Scott yelled, getting louder and turning his head to what Gordon realised was the infirmary door. As the door slid open with a hiss and his other brunette brother, Scott turned back to face the red-head, gently placing his hands on the younger man's shoulders and physically forcing him to lay back down, no matter how he weakly struggled.

Scott quickly got out of his white plastic chair, the same one he had sat in earlier that day, or was it still the same time? Was Gordon going to pass out soon and wake up outside again? His breathing started to get heavier and more frantic.

"Virge, where am I?" Virgil came closer to his bedside, his eyebrows drawn together anxiously in a way that rivalled Scott's.

"Gordon, do you recognise this place?" he asked, worry tightening his voice to a profesional level. It was how Virgil coped, that Gordon knew. He shook his head slowly, wincing, but not willing to leave the shake inside.

"That's not what I meant," he whispered. Some of the mind-wrecking concern left their faces.

"Then what did you mean, Gordo?" Inquired Virgil softly, stepping on Scott's toe out of sight to make sure that the newly opened mouth did not result in anything being said from the eldest Tracy. He ignored the returning icy glare, intent on hearing the red-head's answer.

"You'd think I was crazy," Gordon admitted after a pause. Scott laughed, moving all toes out of the young doctor-ish man's reach.

"We already know that!" he chuckled. "You've been mad for some years now. How about you just tell us and we'll decide for ourselves, hmm?"

Gordon seemed to shrink into his pillow in a valiant effort to get out of sight from his two now-smiling elder brothers. He murmured something into the pillow and they both leaned closer to hear him properly.

"What was that?"

"Groundhog day," he muttered, just loud enough for them to hear. Both Scott and Virgil turned at the same time to look at each other, sizing up the other's reaction to this unusual statement.

Gordon sighed, feeling slightly left out. On any other occasion he would have laughed and made some sort of joke about how they were as close as a married couple. Argued just about as much too, but always made up. But at the moment he just wanted someone to believe him.

Finally both brunette Tracy's finished their silent conference and turned to the red-head.

"It sounds like you've got a story to tell," said Scott warily. There was a flash of the old Gordon-thousand-watt grin in response.

* * *

><p>"So you went through that part of the day...twelve times?"<p>

"Yep."

"And every 'time' ended with you falling unconscious?"

"We've been over this. Yes, it did. No, I didn't remember before, now I do. I put cornflower in Scott's shampoo and jumped out of the window to escape when I heard him come in the room to investigate. Or I fell. Still fuzzy on that bit. Scott, I'm sorry about your hair...and meeting. I guess you'll have missed it, huh?" Scott grinned. The only reason he was able to smile so happily was that Gordon had refused to tell them what would have happened to Alan, and so both of them remained oblivious, though Gordon suspected that Virgil had guessed from the look on the red-head's face when he talked about the youngest blond.

"I sure did, thanks for that." Gordon blinked in confusion.

"You're welcome?" Virgil smirked.

"It was a financing meeting for the board of Dad's company," he snickered. "Scott's been bothering me all weekend for an excuse to get out of it." Gordon grinned at Scott's red cheeks.

"That's me, Gordon Excuse Tracy," he laughed, being joined by Virgil and, after a second, Scott. It wasn't often that Scott showed that he wasn't looking forward to a meeting, but what sort of brothers would they be if they couldn't read each other, and it was obvious that he didn't pleasantly anticipate them at all.

"But you owe me 5 bucks," he added seriously. Another thing about Gordon Tracy, he was big on money; bets made with brothers, working for them for a wage, etc. If there was money to be made, pranks to be played, brothers to be annoyed, he was in immediately. Scott shook his hair wildly, ignoring the fact that it didn't actually move but instead stayed in one white mass, disagreeing to the extra statement in every way.

"No way! Payment is saving your ass from John when he finds out you ripped one of the books when Alan landed on you–"

"And got a concussion!"

"–And believing this crazy story!" He effectively drew the conversation back to the adventures of the day.

"So you DO believe me," Gordon sniggered craftily. After much practice, he knew the exact words to say to get Scott to believe him; Virgil was the unknown variable in that equation. But, as it appeared, Virgil believed him too.

"This is the weirdest thing I've ever heard," he muttered under his breath to himself, closely observing the red-head for any signs of suspicious activity. He knew Gordon well, better than Gordon thought, and he could tell when his younger brother was lying, even though Gordon had perfected it to an almost flawless art.

Virgil also watched for medical signs that Gordon wasn't well. He could clearly see that he had a headache and reacted to the light as if it were an angry Ohana.

"By the way," he interrupted, both men turning to face him. "Alan says thanks. He would have come in and said it himself but Father needed him for something." Virgil's honey-brown eyes smiled fondly.

"He also says he owes you one and–" he raised a hand to stop the overflowing of words starting to pour from the second-youngest's mouth. "It's not money. He said that, in return for saving his life, he'll put up with pranks for a week."

Both brunettes laughed at the utterly delighted look on Gordon Tracy's face. They could already see the cogs starting to work as their younger brother figured out how much he could milk this present of gratitude. In total, as Gordon calculated, it was a lot.

'He must be really grateful,' Gordon thought, amused by the prospect as well as fond. It was his only baby brother after all. And Gordon knew how much Alan would be jumpy all week. He grinned, cheshire cat smile in place, in anticipation.

Finally, after discussing the odd day in detail for a little longer, Virgil checking to make sure his immediate younger brother's head was still just as disorganised as before and Scott ordered them all off to bed. It appeared that they'd talked the evening away, it was now 11 o'clock.

* * *

><p>That week several things went missing. Virgil's medical light-torch mysteriously appeared at the top of the rubbish pile on the morning when they shipped everything over to the mainland, much to Gordon's utter disappointment. All of his sneaking the night before had been wasted when Virgil had picked up that bag. He'd snuck into the infirmary suspiciously, well after his concussion-based bedtime, which Virgil had established after working out what caused the memory loss.<p>

He had been terrified that his brother had realised something was up and locked the infirmary cupboards in the times that he visited the white room, searching desperately for the despised torture device up until last night when he had found it hidden in a drawer. It had taken a spontaneous vacation down the garbage shoot two minutes later, along with Scott's shampoo, which was the second thing that went missing.

Gordon decided to dispose of the recently remembered evidence that he had ever committed the crime of messing up Scott's hair. He had mentioned it, hoping to get a full pardon because of the extremely good deed he did of getting his eldest brother out of a business meeting, but no luck. It had joined the light on vacation.

Third wasn't a material thing. Alan's sanity seemed to go out of the window, what with Gordon's pranks springing up everywhere. He was constantly having to watch his back, literally after Gordon's started prank of drawing strange pictures on the backs of his t-shirts and making his elder brothers snicker. Eventually he went missing himself, disappeared to the opposite side of the island where it was suspected his camp from the submarine incident still remained. Food also went missing, as did TinTin routinely. Alan Tracy never made the mistake of offering that type of thanks again.

Fourth, John had a long talk with Gordon after finding him watching tapes of the incident where he had first discovered his brother's long-time fear. Gordon was sitting placidly, but this facade was defeated by the fact that his hands were clenched so hard they were bleeding from his nails digging into the soft of his palms, as was his lip which was bitten down on hard enough to make him wince for hours afterwards. Gordon never got over the fear of the uncontrollable, but just as Virgil still struggled with being left alone, so did Gordon struggle with losing things out of his control. But it was getting better with the rememberance that he could change things, that he had changed Alan's future as well as the family's, who wouldn't have had much of a future with a vital member missing.

But fear is what makes people human, and without it we can't be brave. And the Tracy's are the bravest of all men; risking life, limb and sanity for the protection of others, which is just about as noble as anyone could ever get.


End file.
